International Arbitration Under Review: Essays in Honour of John Beechey

A common refrain heard in discussions on the advantages of international arbitration over litigation is that international arbitration is a faster and less expensive way of resolving disputes. For this reason, many users, especially in Russia and other former Soviet Union republics, ask for a comparison of the costs and duration of proceedings under different institutions before opting for one or other of them. Arbitration under the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce ('ICC Rules') does not come out of this comparison well. Not only is it more expensive (Figure 1), but also leads to lengthier proceedings than under the rules of other international arbitration institutions. In our experience, it takes at least one and a half to two years from the date the case is filed to obtain an ICC award.

If the cost and duration of the proceedings were the only criteria considered by the parties when choosing an arbitration institution, the ICC International Court of Arbitration ('ICC Court') would have long been discounted as a realistic option, at least in CIS countries. Yet this has not been the case: despite growing competition among arbitration institutions, the ICC Court has held its own, as seen in Figure 2. Furthermore, the 2015 International Arbitration Survey by the School of International Arbitration, Queen Mary, University of London, showed that two-thirds of the corporations polled named the ICC as one of their top three choices.